‘We are out to control and add value to estate agency practice’

Worried by their poor public perception as estate agents who inflate rental values of properties, rent one property to more than 30 persons, collect their money and disappear, estate surveyors and valuers say they have taken a bold step to control, sanitise and add value to estate agency practice.

The Nigerian Institution of Estate Surveyors and Valuers (NIESV), in a bid to check this poor perception of their profession, has set up and registered an Association of Estate Agents in Nigeria (AEAN) with an interim 10-member technical committee managing its affairs.

At a press conference in Lagos, the committee headed by Chudi Ubosi, principal partner, Ubosi Eleh + Co, and Africa president of International Real Estate Federation (FIABCI), noted that the poor public perception and image of the estate agents and, by extension, the estate surveying and valuation, was as a result of the activities of, and incursion of non-professionals into the practice of estate agency.

“Estate surveyors and valuers have had very bad name, perception and publicity. The perception of the estate surveyor in the public space is very poor. We are seen as people who collect money from tenants and don’t remit to landlords. We are seen as people who inflate rental values of properties, and also as people who rent one room to more than 30 people, collect their money and disappear,” he said.

“Estate agency practice is part of our profession as estate surveyors and valers; the law setting up our profession recognises that estate agency is our core business,” he informed, lamenting however that the practice had become an all-comers affair such that “anybody who loses a job today, wakes up the next day, prints a banner and starts letting properties.”

Ubosi disclosed that his committee, which has Kunle Adedeji, Isa Jatto and Gbenga Ismail as vice chairman, secretary and assistant secretary, respectively, had been mandated to liaise with Lagos State government with a view to fashioning out a role for the association.

The committee, he added, also has the duty of fashioning out modalities for membership of the association, and working out its modus operandi viz-a-viz training and minimum qualification for membership.

According to him, they have so simplified membership that anybody who has a minimum qualification of School Certificate could join, adding that entry fee is as low as N5,000.

“We have different categories of membership – certified agents, registered agents and the estate broker. Registered agents are the estate surveyors and valuers who have attained some level of professionalism; certified agents are those that will be joining from other professions, while the brokers are those with just their school certificates,” he said.

He highlighted some of the benefits members would enjoy, pointing out that they be trained, tutored and given lecture materials, saying “association with estate surveyors and valuers will give prospective member a wide variety of knowledge of the agency practice and a wide field of experience to tap from. The association is an opportunity to share experience with estate surveyors.”